![]() ![]() “Do you really think begging is going to work?” asks Ghost Caleb. In the corner of my mind, I see him, watching me in the shadows. She asks me my name as though her kindness and gentleness will move me to speak. Instead, it beats harder and faster in my chest and I gasp for breath. Sometimes I hold my breath, just to see if it will stop. They wind from my chest to monitor the beating of my heart. They extend from my hand, where I receive my liquids and my drugs. One to watch my heart, another my breathing, one to keep me numb. ![]() There’s someone to tug on my various cables. Following along with my own Morse code: Don’t think about him. ![]() I’ve been transfixed by its Morse code for the last hour. One of the bulbs is threatening to go out and it flickers, buzzes, and struggles to stay alive. Alive.Ībove me, there are sterile and industrial fluorescent lights. Hollow and yet, in excruciating pain – still alive. ![]() Slowly, my organs, wet and sticky, are pulled out of me one at a time. I can hear the crack as my ribs are flayed open. As though someone has cut me open with a scalpel, the pain not sinking in until the flesh begins to separate and my blood bubbles out. It’s the only word I can think of to describe how I’m feeling – vivisected. Once you leave this behind…you’ll see that.” – Caleb Because I’ve broken you down and built you back up to believe it. “I’ve been doing this a long time – manipulating people to get my way. ![]()
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![]() He taught Kroeber as much as he could: demonstrated the skills of flint-knapping, explained his language, told the stories of his people one last time so they could be written down and preserved. He ended up living with the director of the museum of anthropology at the University of California, Alfred Kroeber. ![]() Knowing that he was the last surviving Yahi, Ishi was desperate to communicate some of the culture that would be entirely lost when he was gone. ![]() When he realised they were truly all gone, when a series of forest fires meant he was close to starvation, he allowed himself to be found and taken in. He was the very last of his people, and had been living in the wilderness alone, travelling to places he remembered from the time when his tribe had flourished, in the hope of finding some remnant of those he’d grown up with. He called himself “Ishi” – a word in the Yahi language that means simply “man”. He was known at the time and popularised in the press as “the last wild Indian”. ![]() ![]() "On 29 August 1911, a 50-year-old man, a member of the Yahi group of the Native American Yana people, walked out of the forest near Oroville, California, and was captured by the local sheriff. Naiomi Alderman described the book as follows in the Guardian Newspaper ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() and something unknown to them until the end of summer. Reading “Prodigal Summer,” you’ll learn a lot of plant and animal biology-and also a lot about people and their dreams and yearnings. The novel is told by three characters in alternating chapters: Deanna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist whose chapters are all titled “Predators” Garnett Walker, an old native son who’s determined to revive the American chestnut tree (his chapters aptly titled “Old Chestnuts”) and Lusa Landowski Widener, an entomologist recently married into a large local family and soon left with keeping the family farm afloat, in “Moth Love” chapters. What Kingsolver does so well is create three characters who want something large and concrete that they can champion. ![]() Kingsolver, educated as an evolutionary biologist, is the rare writer who can mesh great characters and engaging plot with science and ecology. Tangled in lush growth, love and loss, creation and re-creation. There’s no better time to read Barbara Kingsolver’s “Prodigal Summer,” set in the Virginia mountains and teeming with insects and animals ![]() You’re thinking about the deep green of the mountains and the bird calls, and everything in thick bloom. It’s winter, and admit it: You’re yearning for the long days of summer. ![]() 5/31/2023 0 Comments The paperbag princess![]() ![]() This book was listed fourth on the 2001 Publishers Weekly All-Time Best selling Children's Books list for paperbacks at 6,970,000 copies (not including the 1,049,000 hardcover copies). Out of the tragedy, he produced one of his best-known books, Love You Forever. Munsch's wife delivered two stillborn babies in 19. In Guelph he was encouraged to publish the many stories he made up for the children he worked with. He also taught in the Department of Family Studies at the University of Guelph as a lecturer and as an assistant professor. In 1975 he moved to Canada to work at the preschool at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. In 1973, he received a Master of Education in Child Studies from Tufts University. He studied to become a Jesuit priest, but decided he would rather work with children after jobs at orphanages and daycare centers. ![]() ![]() He graduated from Fordham University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and from Boston University in 1971 with a Master of Arts degree in anthropology. Robert Munsch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ![]() 5/31/2023 0 Comments A Seed Is Sleepy by Sylvia Long![]() Each book's title within the series gives the reader a chance to know what is being explored within the pages of the actual book while also providing the format of the book's writing, which is the "is. This is one series that had my attention caught since of its descriptive title. A Seed Is Sleepy presents its information in an innovative way, making it one of a number of recent picture-book (Jason Chin's Redwoods also springs to mind, in this regard) I would recommend, to get reluctant or indifferent young students interested in botany. The ink and watercolor artwork is simply superb, with beautiful colors, appealing page layout, and botanical portraits that capture the delicate charm of dandelion seeds and the towering strength of the redwoods. I really liked this dual format, and think it will draw young readers in, sparking their interest and then building upon it. ![]() "A Seed Is Naked," for instance, is followed by a brief two-sentence discussion of gymnosperms - seeds that are not "clothed" in fruit. Each two-page spread pairs a general (and rather poetic) statement about seeds, with some specific scientific information. In the beginning, a seed is sleepy (and secretive), lying untouched and still, but soon it is fruitful and adventurous - spreading out and growing. ![]() Diana Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long - who also collaborated on An Egg Is Quiet - offer a pean to the seed in this lovely picture-book, which explores some of the many fascinating qualities of these plants-to-be. ![]() |